This lengthy report on Saturday’s SlutWalk in Union Square investigates the march’s philosophical underpinnings, comparisons with Occupy Wall Street, and contains photos and audio interviews with the participants.

They came from as far away as San Diego and Delaware to participate in SlutWalk, holding signs that read CONSENT IS SEXY and WE DEMAND RESPECT. This was part of a wave of protests initiated in April in Toronto and continuing with additional walks in Australia, Chicago, and London. SlutWalk’s ostensible purpose is to protest associations between rape and appearance. Women (and some men) dress slutty in an attempt to take back the word.

“I think it’s going to have a definite impact on the people who we can talk to and who we can reach out to,” said Andrea, part of a group of fifty women who identified themselves as the Delaware Sluts. “Because so many people think that women are raped because of the way they dress or the way they present themselves. Or they’re too drunk. But, you know, that’s not always the case.”

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On Saturday morning, many hundreds gathered in Union Square to bring this movement to New York City. I decided to attend because I was curious about the philosophical overlap between SlutWalk and Occupy Wall Street.

I was to discover some startling differences. When I began talking with people last week at Occupy Wall Street, a guy there slipped me his business card (containing a phone number right after “Press Inquiries”) without comment. I very much appreciated the swift nonchalance and unintrusive nature of this gesture. But when I wandered around with my microphone seeking to understand the SlutWalkers, I was informed by three separate people (one identifying herself as a “media coordinator”) that there was a media scrum on at 11:45. I observed another journalist get into a five minute discussion about the interview availability of one of the main organizers. The journalist was informed that the organizer’s schedule was quite busy.

It was as if the SlutWalk organizers were top-level politicians or entertainment figures who had to approve every interview request. Quite frankly, I didn’t have time for this. And I certainly didn’t experience anything like this at Occupy Wall Street. So I just walked around and talked with people.

This top brass tendency to drown out the very people who wanted to listen or have a conversation reached a comical crescendo when I talked with a very thoughtful participant named Jen, who was holding an endearingly geeky sign reading </patriarchy>. She had helped to organize SlutWalk San Diego.

As we were discussing protesting issues, another SlutWalk lieutenant — standing only a few feet away from us — boomed “Attention all media! We’re going to be having a media scrum in five minutes on the steps!” into her amplification device without warning. Second later, there was another “Attention all media!” from another lieutenant. This left Jen and I desperately seeking intermittent thirty second pockets to talk, hoping that the lieutenants weren’t going to bark over our conversation, which involved whether a political protest with a narrow message could attract the same 99 percent involved against Wall Street.

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Despite the martinet-minded organizers, most of the SlutWalkers didn’t prepare their signs in advance. The majority affixed marker to board shortly before their participation. It was almost as if they wanted to write out the first thing that came to their minds. I couldn’t help but compare this against some of the cardboard placards that had been placed in Zuccotti Park with more permanent messages in mind.

There was a fair amount of media at SlutWalk NYC. I liked the 1010 WINS reporter, who asked many thoughtful questions. I wasn’t impressed with the CNN crew, who proved so lazy that, when the WINS reporter was interviewing a SlutWalker at length, the CNN crew propped his camera up and hoped to siphon off the WINS reporter’s labor. Suddenly there were two mikes recording the woman’s words. I felt compelled to insert my own mike into the shot to make the woman look more important on screen. You can listen to what I recorded of the WINS exchange here:

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As seen by the way that the young man in the blue jacket checks out women in the above photograph, one little discussed aspect of the SlutWalk is the male gaze. I tried chasing this guy down after I had taken this photo. I wondered if his clipboard meant that he was an organizer or possibly a member of the media. It’s possible that his gaze was innocuous or that he was lost in thought.

Why is this important? Because I overheard a separate conversation between three young men on the perimeter of the protesting area. They didn’t know what the walk was all about. One of them, wearing an orange hoodie, shouted, “They say that women get raped because of what they wear. No, it’s because they crazy loons! If I’m in the jungle at two in the morning, there shouldn’t be crazy loons out there.” The man in the orange hoodie kept enunciating “crazy loons.” I tried to approach this man for a radio interview, curious if he could elaborate on his point and his curious redundancy, but he swiftly disappeared.

“Stop the rapes! It’s a global epidemic around the world! From babies — yes, babies are raped — to grannies! And that’s around the world! And in New York City, we have a rape epidemic! Rapes are up. The stats on rapes are up. And yet rapes are under reported. Because women don’t want to be cross-examined by Joe Tacopina and Chad Siegel. Women don’t want their vaginas compared to a Venus flytrap!”

This protester was especially vociferous in her tone. You can listen to some of her speech here:

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I was fortunate to meet Becky, another of the Delaware Sluts. She helped me clarify the origin of the group. I was grateful to learn that the Delaware Sluts was part of an on-campus feminist group called The V-Day Club. The group performs The Vagina Monologues every year to raise money for women’s charities. Hearing of the SlutWalk, they brought the whole group up via bus. Becky also told me that online mobilization was one of the reasons she and her friends were here.

“I read feminist blogs and stuff on the Internet,” said Becky. “And I know that a lot of other people in the organization do too. So I think a lot of people just found it by themselves and then came together through that.”

It sounded to me that, for many who were at Union Square, SlutWalk had come together in a manner not unlike Occupy Wall Street.

Becky confessed to me that she didn’t know a lot of details about Occupy Wall Street. She was still playing catchup.

“I’ve been reading a little bit about it just over the past week,” she said. “But it’s very basic information on my part. I don’t think that anybody feels that we can’t co-exist. I mean, issues are issues. But everybody needs to go out there and be heart. I don’t think it’s really diverting attention from either one.”

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But while Becky expressed a desire for peaceful unity between SlutWalk and Occupy Wall Street, I began to discover some unanticipated fissures. In search of SlutWalkers who didn’t fit into the demographic of mostly young women, I discovered a middle-aged couple named Murray and Sandy. Both were dressed up for the SlutWalk.

I asked them about Occupy Wall Street.

“I’m very aware of it,” said Murray. “I have a number of friends there. I think the message here is perhaps a little more clear and direct. Over there, it’s a little muddied. But, you know, we definitely wish them luck.”

“I’m not sure why they’re there,” interjected Sandy. “I mean, I know the economy sucks. But I’m not sure what picketing Wall Street is going to, you know, do to help the economy.”

I asked them why they thought the Slutwalk message was clearer than the Occupy Wall Street message.

“This is an event that started from an idea with a message,” said Murray, “whereas Occupy Wall Street, I think, just came from…”

Sandy: “General dissatisfaction.”

Murray: “Let’s just go make noise and see what happens.”

When I pressed both of them further on their characterization of Occupy Wall Street as “just noise,” Murray defended SlutWalk as a permanent event and a planned event.

“It’s reasonable to work with authorities on something like this,” he said. “You want to find a compromise. We do have free speech in this society. And for the most part, it is granted. You just have to make compromises to make it work. And I think this is what happens when you make compromises. When you just kind of start showing up, you’re going to get a mass like you have down at Wall Street.”

You can listen to the fascinating five minute exchange I had with Murray and Sandy here:

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There seemed to me a very conservative thrust to the type of protesting Murray and Sandy were talking about. Occupy Wall Street’s message, while very general, had nevertheless managed to be more inclusive to the public. By contrast, SlutWalk’s more narrowly defined message caused about 500 people to show up on Saturday afternoon.

Yet SlutWalk’s “more clear and direct” message had also attracted participants like Veronica — another member of the Delaware Sluts. Veronica wore very little. When I asked Veronica if I could take her picture, she said, “No thank you.” (During our conversation, she told another person not to photograph her.) When I asked her why she was dressed the way that she had, she told me, “Well, I like how my body is. I love my body and I think I deserve the right to display it the way I want and not be judged because of it.” She told me that SlutWalk hadn’t pushed her over the edge on the issue of judgment and appearance, but that “guys at my college pushed me over the edge on that issue. I’m glad that we have this organization where we can display this dislike of people’s judgments.”

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9 Comments

I’m not anti-police, I’m anti-abuse of power… but the video of police violating 1st Amendment rights of the Occupy Wall St supporters is more than I can take.

Funny, how public sector workers such as police and corrections officers expect Americans to protect their job/pension/health care security from Republican/Conservative spending cuts (examples in Wisconsin and Ohio). But then the police union/association members pay us back by beating, gas, shoot with rubber bullets and wrongfully arresting Concerned Citizens demanding accountability from the Wall St con-artists who ruined our economy.

It seems the real criminals have had police and secret service protection. I’m on my way to the Wall Street Campground at 11 Wall St. to re-join my activist brothers and sisters in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Class War has begun and the LAW better get out of the way.

Back in the late 90’s while the Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay were busy selling out the American middle class for a very few silver spoon trust fund babies… I don’t remember the public sector union workers standing up for their private sector union brothers and sisters.

This rant is for all you Johnny-come-lately’s speaking out for the working class. I’ve been part of an accountability movement since the late 90’s. The newspaper headline we used is from 4/16/99, titled: “Mattel to layoff 3,000 workers. WALL STREET CHEERED the news of restructuring, sending Mattel’s stock up nearly 16 percent…”

WHAT? We all know how IT turned out now that our children had all the latest LEAD based toys from China.

Questions one must ask: How did Wall Street become the enemy of the American working class? What did the 90’s Congress legislate to make it easy for Corporations to move jobs out of the country? Would the police of the time blame 3000 Mattel workers for being VERY angry? Because that news article was about as “in your face” as it gets… (See where Michael Moore got his talking points from cyberbitchslap2.blogspot.com)

I am somewhat disturbed to read comments from several of the female SlutWalk attendees who seemed to take an “us vs. them” separatist mentality of these two marches. While I understand both groups are there to get their own message heard, I also see where their messages overlap. For one:

Over the past 2 weeks, we have seen women repeatedly targeted by police for harassment, abuse, and arrest at the Occupy Wall St. protests. Watch the YouTube videos and notice that nearly every woman who was bothered by the cops happened to be young and attractive.

One pretty blonde woman dressed in clothes some might consider “slutty” was touched inappropriately by a police officer while she was marching. She asked the officer not to touch her again and said it loud enough for her fellow protesters to hear. For this “offense”, she was ARRESTED!

Some of these police officers are on the same power trip as any rapist. Over and over again, we watched women at Occupy Wall St. picked on by the cops because they were “easy targets” physically; small and unarmed. We watched them harassed, threatened, insulted, penned up, pepper sprayed, handcuffed and arrested by officers who could hardly conceal the lascivious grins on their lips.

Feminists take note! The women taking part in Occupy Wall St. need our support NOW!!!

I dare the SlutWalkers to go support the Occupy Wall St. march tomorrow. Dress in full slut regalia and carry signs telling the cops they may not touch you. Stand up for your sisters who have been abused day after day on Wall St. since these marches began. And if you’re really willing to walk the walk, be prepared to be arrested, groped, and publicly humiliated by police.

This is what is happening to the female marchers on Wall St. right NOW and it’s got to be stopped. Solidarity for your sisters NOW! Tell those bastard cops to get their hands off of us!!!!!!!

Lol don’t even begin on putting occupy wall street with the slut walk. 2 completely different protests, where one is a movement that could Reshape the world; much to the fear of politicians. The slut walk is an issue that will always appear in any society as a rule, but be aware occupy wall street is much greater.

Brendan has it right. The 1% are so powerful that if you don’t oppose them, you are supporting them. There is no trickle down economy– instead, every economic institution has been re-engineered to suck wealth from the workers to the wealthy. Any attempt to reverse that dynamic, such as union strength, is in the crosshairs.

I hate patriarchy, but it is abuse that is a part of the entire unjust system, and singling out part of the power apparatus as the real enemy plays right into the hands of the rich.

I’m a feminist I understand the issues around rape, but wtf is it with these people, criticising Occupy Wallstreet. In the context of whats happening in America right now is this not the most ridiculous pointless bourgeois exercise ever? Interestingly haven’t heard Michael Moore or Chomsky suggesting we all head out and support Slut Walk, perhaps they ought to go down there dressed in knickers and bras and show some solidarity with these people.

[…] Occupy Wall Street: SlutWalk NYC This was part of a wave of protests initiated in April in Toronto and continuing with additional walks in Australia, Chicago, and London. SlutWalk's ostensible purpose is to protest associations between rape and appearance. Women (and some men) dress … Read more on Reluctant Habits […]